Legendary Status
by Ryurasuke
Summary: A story of a new continent, and the new breed of trainer that has arisen from there in their efforts to fight a new criminal organization. Credit for ideas goes to ScarletWingsOfDestiny
1. Chapter 1

About 25 years ago, a new land was discovered where any and all pokémon from every region clear from Kanto to Unova were found to reside. This new land was called Suanini. Suanini is a large and diverse land with deserts, grasslands, mountains, tundras, snowscapes, oceans, lakes, etc., and was quickly colonized by many a trainer and professor and quickly developed a system of gyms, gym leaders, and a Pokémon League of its own. But it wasn't just good people and trainers that established themselves in Suanini, much like the other regions, a group of undesirables formed and arose in Suanini.

This group called themselves Team Rahn and were far more established and intelligent than the other groups. Their plan is to capture and sap the power out of pokémon, especially legendaries, to be able to turn it into weaponry, they have even adapted a way to fuse the power into a serum to give a human the temporary ability to use a pokémon's attacks, but this has a major effect on the human's body and can kill them, not to mention that whenever they suck the power from a pokémon, that pokémon dies.

But as this new group arises and expands, they must face off against a new breed of trainer. More talented and special trainers. A few select trainers have even discovered they have the special ability to sync themselves with their pokémon, called SoulSync to amplify the pokémon's power and even use the pokémon's abilities themselves without the use of the special serum, but these people are also subject to being captured and tested on by Team Rahn who wishes to have their abilities.

What will happen with this new evil group? And what will happen to these trainers? Even more so, what will happen to the pokémon and the Suanini Region?

* * *

><p><strong>All credit for the design of the continent and Soulsync idea as well as this intro goes to ScarletWingsofDestiny from a gaia rp she allowed me to join. Character designs are by me and friends who made characters for this...<strong>


	2. Chapter 2

Rayna Sorella was in her element. She may not have many pokémon, but the ones she did have were all water type. Not that her pokémon were anything to brag about. She had two, and she didn't even like one of them. But she'd promised her grandfather that she would take it from him. He'd told her that she would learn from having it near, but she couldn't understand what lesson an ugly feebas would have for her.

But her love for her grandfather outweighed her distaste for the feebas, and she kept it with her at all times. Not that she left her piplup behind anywhere either. But either way, she refused to betray her grandfather, so she was stuck with the ugly thing.

For you see, Rayna was a lover of beauty. She loved anything beautiful, and the more beautiful, the more she loved it. The phrase 'beauty is in the eye of the beholder,' held no meaning to her. Things were either beautiful or they weren't. It couldn't be denied. Nothing she'd ever seen before was difficult to see whether it was beautiful. It was obvious.

"Let's go guys!" She said excitedly as she drifted in the water. She was busy at her 'job.' A job she loved though. Being a tour guide was pretty fun. The 'Cove' was a good place to live, great conditions and it was an easy place to get money. She got lots of money, from it, tourists were willing to pay almost anything for nothing.

Whatever, she'd gladly take their money, it was nothing for her to do _most _of what they wanted. She refused to do what a lot of the men wanted her to do. They could look all they want, but if they touched she'd kick their asses.

And she was popular enough in the city that if anybody had ever tried anything, they'd be annihilated by the entire park. Everybody, tourists and locals alike would attack them, all she had to do was scream and they'd save her.

Right now she was floating at the top of the water with her feebas and piplup. A little behind her were the tourists she was guiding around. Two couples and their male friend, along with their pokémon of course. People didn't usually commission her as the tour guide unless they were up for a real party.

She was a thousand times better, faster, smarter and more daring than any other swimming guide in the area. She would take customers to places that none other would dare go. The only other ways were to take a boat tour or go by oneself.

So she was able to charge a lot for them to hire her. And boy did people love hiring her. Whether it be basic groups just looking for a good time, or tourist boys (mostly) and tourist girls (rarely) who were hoping for a _good time._

All of those ones went home disappointed though. She wasn't a whore, they could look all they wanted, but touching was an entirely different deal. It pissed a lot of them off, and they called her a tease and such.

"Everybody ready?" She asked. She looked carefully over her wards, assessing what they could handle.

The three men were all muscular and had well-built bodies, glorifying in their heavy muscles. Six-pack abs, biceps to match machamps', and all of the confidence that went with their muscles.

Girls weren't too different. It was obvious that they did some kind of rigorous activities daily, they both had tight and toned bodies, not unlike Rayna's own swimmer's body. But only a few seconds in the water dismissed any ideas she had that these might be other swimmers.

Only two of them had bothered to even bring pokémon with them, oddly enough they were together in one of the couples.

A squirtle and a magikarp, decent enough, but they weren't beautiful. The girl had brought the squirtle, and already Rayna was getting annoyed at her antics with the cute pokémon. She couldn't wait until they went underwater so she would have to shut up.

Rayna dove into the water and drove herself as deep as she could as fast as she could. She had to escape the girl.

And in moments, it was amazing. As soon as the water enclosed her head she was free. She heard the others splash down into the water as well.

Within moments she had already assessed each of their underwater abilities. None of them were really any good. One of the girls, the one without the squirtle, was pretty good in the water. The other, well, Rayna wouldn't be trusting her for any races soon or anything. Or for making it the entire swim.

The boys all did decent enough, but none of them could come near to matching her. Or even the other girl. The squirtle would definitely be getting some use today.

Rayna giggled at the antics of the five as they struggled to follow her. Each of them had a Breather, a small device inserted into the mouth to allow humans to breath underwater. Rayna didn't know how, nor did she care.

She had always had the ability to hold her breath for long periods of time, and she did carry a Breather around with her, just in case, she had it tied down onto her belt.

But, she'd never admit to it, she enjoyed rubbing other people's faces in the fact that she didn't need one. She also liked to support the myth that had arisen that she could breath underwater.

She'd only tried it once, and it had ended in a terrible fiasco, almost killing her. It was really painful so she avoided doing it again. So although she wasn't one hundred percent sure, she still doubted that she would be able to breathe water.

But she didn't need to, the places she was going weren't more than ten minutes apart from one another, most they wouldn't be diving for more than five minutes. She could easily go more than five minutes; she'd almost gone ten before!

So the little she'd be taking them on would tax their abilities without the Breathers, but she should be fine. In the water, she was queen, enough of a talent in the liquid to match some pokémon.

She dove ever deeper, the others all having trouble keeping themselves down due to the buoyancy of the air in their lungs. She would too, but she had weights attached to each limb, as well as her heavy belt to aid the other weights.

The belt was about fifteen pounds at the moment, but that changed all the time with what she was bringing for the groups.

She didn't usually use the anklets or the bracelets, just five pounders most of the time since she only needed the belt to be kept stable. She barely even needed the belt. It was more for ease so she didn't have to work so hard at staying down.

Since she was so small and so light naturally, without much fat except for her decent-sized chest, she really didn't need much added weight to make her sink. She didn't want to sink, just not float, so that fifteen pounds was more than enough, keeping her at a level about a dozen feet above the seafloor and nearly the same from the surface.

It was a good item for her to have, especially considering how much time she spent in the water overall.

At the moment, she was turned around, floating gently in place while waiting for the others to catch up to her.

Finally they made it, but by this time, she was starting to feel the effects of holding her breath for so long; rather than have them continue at the slow pace they'd set before, she swam over and handed one of her bracelets to each of the guys, strapping it to them and gesturing loosely how they should strap them on to go and increase their speed. She then handed the anklets to both the last guy and the girl with the squirtle. The other girl being good enough on her own, she judged.

They nodded acceptance, and soon moved along with much more speed. Not that that meant all that much. They hadn't been racing before either.

But finally they made it to a dark hole in one of the rock walls ahead of them. Immediately Rayna drove herself straight towards it. The others followed, not really having much choice anymore.

Almost immediately after entering the cavern it rose sharply up to the surface. She waited for the others to join her above the surface of the water and then spoke, her voice taking on a dramatic presentation quality to it.

"Welcome, to Lover's Cove! A secluded area for love struck hearts to find refuge from the world. While within the cavern, time seems to slow, even coming close to halting entirely. While in these walls, you can spend all day, lost in forever spent in your lover's arms." She said it just as she'd rehearsed so many other times.

She spun around to check her wards, and found that the two couples were busy exploring the finer portions of the ideas behind the Lover's Cove. Within seconds of entry after hearing her lecture, they were seated at the edge of the pool of water, trying to devour as much of their lovers as they could, while still staying decent.

Rayna wasn't a girl who appreciated the Lover's Cove. She was more interested in money and adventure, in being in the water all her life than she was in being in a relationship.

But apparently the unpaired male had other thoughts. "Hey, you look lonely over here, all by yourself. Need some company?"

Rayna restrained herself from snorting in disgust, but it was a close call, she almost did it. "No, I'm fine. Thanks though."

"You sure? A little company couldn't do no wrong." He said with a lust filled grin. "After all, this is _Lover's Cove._"

His voice, with all of the suggestive influence he tied into it, made Rayna sick. "I'm sorry, but no. Just no, not at all interested. I'm here to guide you guys to the local hotspots, not get myself a guy or get laid. So sorry, but absolutely not."

A crazed, angry look came across his face and he reached for her. He grabbed her arm harshly, squeezing it fiercely in his grasp.

But piplup came to her rescue. He jumped up and pecked at the guy's hand.

The second before the guy released her, she smelled his problem. He had an aura of alcohol floating around him, forcing Rayna's nose to wrinkle in distaste. She didn't really like the smell, especially right now, when this drunk was trying to _get_ with her.

But piplup had saved her, causing the guy to pull his hand away and stumble backwards, almost falling.

"No, usually means no. Got it?" She said, glaring the man down.

"Alright, alright. Jeez, didn't mean to cause such a f*cking fuss." He pretended to shrug it off like it was nothing.

Rayna could see right through his charade. But she let his pride win and just let it go. She didn't care all that much anyway. So long as he didn't continue.

Which he didn't. He backed off and sat at the edge of the pool of water, staring into its depths while ignoring his friends.

"Ready to move on?" She asked. "You paid for a lot more than one stop. I've fine if you want to stop here, I already got paid for the whole trip."

"Let's move on then." One of the guys said after coming up for air from his girlfriend's lips.

"Then let's go." Rayna said, running towards them and leaping into a beautiful, graceful dive right past the five companions.

Moments later she heard them all reenter the water, and then the two pokémon being released. Why their trainers had returned them in the first place was beyond her. They knew they would be going back in, why bother returning them?

Either way, she led them on their way.

The rest of the tour wasn't nearly as exciting, nothing happened. Since they were so many, none of the wild pokémon in the area dared come near. And the tourists were on their best behavior now. After seeing that she was willing to stand up for herself, none of them dared mess with her anymore.

So they went to the rest of the sites that she'd picked out for this group to see. The spawning pools were among her favorites of the sites, where pokémon could be seen as babies- small krabbys, tiny tentacools, and small magikarp- all caught in wading pools on a rocky outlet in the middle of the ocean.

It was so beautiful that Rayna refused to allow any of her guests to leave without seeing it. She absolutely refused to allow it, everybody came to see them if they commissioned her.

Finally they began to make their way back to land. Thankfully, the single guy didn't bother trying to make any more moves on her. Rayna didn't ever bother learning their names, it wasn't a matter of which she really concerned herself, learning their names only meant that she was more likely to become their friends.

And that didn't interest her in the least. They were only there for a few days, she lived there. Becoming their friends was a bad idea, she'd most likely never see any of them again.

She lead them back to shore where they said their farewells and she took the rest of her money. Half before, half after, the best way of managing her deals with people. It made it easier.

Since the Cove was so close to Tyrannoh City, she didn't want to risk any kind of bad deals with the wrong type of crowds who would walk off without payment. Since she dare not risk that, she got paid fifty percent of the total before she began and the other half at the end to give both parties incentive not to back out of the deal.

But these five paid in full, and gave her a nice tip as well. She was given a full extra half of the total bill, meaning she made three halves to the price. She wasn't gonna turn them down, money was money.

* * *

><p><strong>Alright everybody, I went back and checked out the story, going through it pretty thoroughly, to check and make sure there were no errors. Hopefully I caught them all. <strong>


	3. Chapter 3

Mitsuru was walking home after a long day of her classes. Nine hours straight of working hard in a multitude of courses. Most of them focused on pokémon in some way, but some were strictly human. Those ones were the ones in which she held the least interest in.

She loved pokémon, they were so much better than humans in every way imaginable. They were nicer, cleaner, more intimate, and friendlier. And the ones who weren't, didn't have a choice, they were just the mean pokémon, she didn't hold them accountable for their species.

But she was heading back to her house now, and as she got closer and closer a weight seemed to draw over her. Her steps took her closer and closer, and each one saw her head bowed deeper and each successive step took her a little longer.

She didn't like her home, it was far too opulent for her tastes. But with her mother being a star coordinator, winning any competition she entered, and her father being a lead scientist in first Cinnabar Island's research facility and then moving onto be head of all of the newest trends of technology, it was expected that they would have a lavish house.

He had founded the research behind the Breathers, worked hand in hand with Professor Oak on his pokédex, moved onto bigger facilities, etc. If it was unique and unheard of before, her father was probably involved in its creation.

So of course, with all of the money he received from all of his work, plus her mother's fame and fortune from the contests, it was near-mandatory that the two of them would share a house that put some of the pokémon manors to shame.

Of course their daughter would absolutely hate the exorbitant amount of money they spent on the house, that's how it always worked. She was a pretty simple girl, she didn't like wasting money, she never spent more than absolutely necessary on any expenditure. Although she realized that she might not have a problem with spending so much money, if she hadn't been born into so much of it.

And now that she was finished with her schooling, since today was her last day, she could now go off on her own journey, like her brother had done a few years back.

As a matter of fact, she already had her very first pokémon, a treecko that had been bred from her brother's sceptile at the daycare center.

She couldn't wait until her treecko became as strong as his was. It was so potent, she couldn't even imagine being in control of so much power.

"I just hope I'm able to live up to your legend." She whispered to her brother. Not that he was anywhere near her, he wasn't even on the same continent anymore. Last she'd heard he'd headed to Kanto, but that was almost a year ago, so she wasn't sure if he was still there. For all she knew, he could've moved to Sinnoh, or headed into Johto, or even might be back in Suanini.

And her parents barely talked to her. In all the time that she'd lived in their house, she could literally count the number of times they'd spoken to her on the fingers on both her outspread hands. She might have been exaggerating a little, but surely not by much.

Her only reason for coming home used to be her brother. He was her best friend through most of her life, but then he left.

So she spent hours at school, but she wasn't social there either. So those hours spent at school were just her alone with her treecko. She got lots of practical training in, sparring and training with her treecko until the time had come when she _had_ to go home. That was how she'd spent her time after her brother had left.

Any time that she was able to spend away from her house was time well spent as far as she was concerned. She may not have any friends at school, nor any outside of school either, but at least she didn't have to suffer the silence of their house.

Whenever she was at her home, it was unbearable. The silence was so loud, the only people making any kind of noise whatsoever were the servants and she herself.

Her dad was only ever home once upon a blue moon, and all he did whenever he came home was spent many hours locked in his room with his wife. And those times, everybody knew what he was doing.

Her mom mostly just sat around and socialized, or went to other people's houses and socialized, or to big events around the world and socialized. But never with her daughter.

Her mom was a pretty social creature, she thrived on interaction with others. Once, she'd gone nearly a week without seeing anybody outside of the house. It was torturous for her, she had barely made it. Mitsuru had actually been disgusted with her mom on that day.

How could you live your life with it depending so much on what other people thought of you? It was stupid, there was no way that could be considered a healthy lifestyle.

So Mitsuru refused to be like her mother. She would feign illness whenever there was an upcoming event her mother wanted her to go to. Most of the time it worked, sometimes her mother wouldn't take no for an answer.

Those days Mitsuru just suffered through, it wasn't like she could tell her mom that she hated her entire way of life; it would break her heart.

So Mitsuru had never. But now as she approached her house after her last day of school, she was tempted. The door opened for her, the butler having had seen her long before she actually neared the building.

"Good afternoon young mistress." He said with his normal officious air about him.

Mitsuru nodded in acknowledgement of him. She didn't want to interact with the help, she had a plan to go in there and tell her mother what was what. She wasn't going to raise pokémon to force them into contests like her mother had.

She was going to be a trainer and it was time her mother accepted that fact. All her life her mother had conditioned her to be a coordinator, but she didn't want to do that and be another airhead princess who focused only on that. She wanted to follow in her brother's footsteps and one day, finally succeed in beating him.

But that was some time away, he still had almost five years of training that she didn't. But she didn't plan on it taking her that long to surpass him, she wanted to beat him ASAP.

First though, she had to tell her mother the truth.

Mitsuru found her mother dining in their great hall. A delicate silver platter of delectable piecemeal foods was arrayed upon it. Caviar, delicate pastries, fine pieces of miltank cheese lovingly molded to fit upon small crackers, and much more.

Her mother only ate high quality items, even if she didn't eat much of anything. A lot of that expensive food went to waste, since she refused to allow her family to eat leftovers. Just the very word, '_leftovers,'_ would leave her in a foul mood for some time after.

"Um, mom?" Mitsuru said timidly as she approached.

"Yes?" She responding gracefully. Her voice was melodic, entrancing to anybody who heard it.

Mitsuru gulped at the focused glare that her mother sent her way. _Now, do it now!_ She shouted at herself. _Come on!_

"Um, today was my last day. I'm finished with school entirely now. I'm gonna," _NOW!_ "Go out on my journey now."

"Oh that's right, you're going to become a champion just like your mother." Her mom answered.

Mitsuru didn't respond.

"Well, you have fun, and if you see that brother of yours, let him know I miss him, he should try harder to stay in contact."

Mitsuru bowed, knowing that she was dismissed. She walked out and berated herself for being such a coward. She'd chickened out, how pathetic.

She ran up to her room and grabbed her change of clothes. She was not going to traipsing all over multiple continents in her school uniform. That was just asking for trouble.

Loose silks in the form of a tunic and a hakama. Beautiful, functional, and covered her enough to be decent. She changed quickly, donned her necklace and turned to the door. She grabbed treecko's pokéball, on the end of the necklace, and said a quick blessing for her brother.

Then she let it drop so treecko was resting in the middle of her chest, a little above her ample mounds. "Are you ready treecko? Let's go!"

And off she went. Without any kinds of preparations. Or supplies. She was horribly unprepared for her journey. But living her sheltered life, she didn't have any idea what she was doing. She didn't have any idea of what she was getting into.

* * *

><p><strong>Unfortunately, I don't know of anyway to add picture or links into here so I cannot show you where the characters are directly, nor can I show y'all what the characters look like. Although I had hoped to. If anybody has any suggestions let me know please. <strong>


	4. Chapter 4

Masaomi woke up extremely excited. Today was the first day of his adventures.

Already, even just waking up, he could tell he was in for one hell of a day. His father's charmander, which, after his father's death, had become his, was fast asleep on the kitchen table.

His own pokémon, gifted to him by a family friend, was an annoying little chimchar that loved to make trouble for him. He was an annoying little fuzz ball, but Masaomi loved him. They'd only been together for a only a week now, but they'd formed one hell of a bond already.

Chimchar was currently seated on his couch, watching a pokémon battle between the champion of the Sinnoh League and a challenger.

"And now, watch as Sinnoh League Champion Mikado Ryugamine faces off against a new challenger, Jack Bolton!" The announcer shouted.

So popular was the champion that it was several minutes until anything other than applause was able to be heard. Chimchar was never one to pass an opportunity to celebrate something exciting, so he was leaping and dancing across the couches and chairs in Masaomi's house throughout the cheering.

Charmander succeeded in sleeping through it all.

Masaomi shook his head and went into the kitchen to prepare breakfast for the three of them. He placed a bowl of pokéchow down in front of charmander. Without getting up, or even moving more than his arm, he began to devour breakfast. He still looked fast asleep, hell, for all Masaomi could tell, he might actually still have been asleep.

Masaomi sat down to his own breakfast, also keeping chimchar's food with him. For each bite of his own food, he picked a piece of chow out and tossed it to the little monkey.

Chimchar leaped up to catch each piece in its turn, but his attention never wavered from the television.

Masaomi idly looked over to see what was going on.

At first, the challenger was confident, cocky even, as he sent out his first pokémon: a sturdy powerful venosaur. His venosaur had gotten him all this way, even past the elite four. When Ryugamine called out a kingdra, the challenger's grin only grew. He had type advantage over his opponent too.

Before the battle commenced the champion spoke up. "If you think for a moment that you'll win by standing on your pokémon's shoulders to gain you this victory, then you are far from the truth. The battles are won by the trainers, that is what it means to be a pokémon master, and not a mere trainer. You're nothing. That venosaur is quite impressive, but you'll not touch even one of my pokémon."

And his prophecy was correct. Jack had only used one pokémon through his career as a trainer, so his venosaur was super charged, while all of his other pokémon were lacking in their training. The champion won the match without his kingdra being touched once by any of his opponent's pokemon.

"I told you, by yourself, you're worthless. If you were worthy, you'd have been able to beat me with any of your pokémon. I went easy. I could have won in half the time." He taunted. Nobody who watched the match could doubt him. "Come back after you realize that you're more than your pokémon." He turned to walk away.

The audience was in total silence due to their awe. The champion had almost left the battlefield by the time the first cheer went out. Moments after, everybody else burst into joy. The crowd was so loud, it obliterated all other sounds. Kingdra floated along beside the champion. He didn't believe in pokéballs, it was obvious whenever he was around.

Five shadowed figures were shrouded in the darkness of the arena entrance behind where the champion had stood for his part in the match. They would only be shown when kingdra fell. It had been a long time since anybody had managed that, too long, he may have changed them since the last time people had seen, after all, many teams changed in a decade. After all, a pokémon _master_ realized when the group he was with could use improvement.

Masaomi clicked the remote to turn the television off. Chimchar glared at him; he glared back, and after a tense moment, chimchar laughed and leaped over to the table. Charmander didn't see fit to wake up, just kept right on sleeping on the table.

"Let's get the hell out of here then." Masaomi suggested. Chimchar launched himself off of the table and swung over to land on Masaomi's shoulders, jumping quick from one to the other. Charmander actually moved, picking himself up and walking to the edge of the table, falling forward off the edge. Masaomi was ready, catching him before he fell more than a few inches. Charmander had trusted him to keep him safe.

Masaomi set out of his house, grabbing the pack he'd had next to the door for weeks already. After leaving, he saw one of his neighbors, an elderly woman who had been close to his father. He waved and saw her duck her head, with eyes glistening.

They both knew he would return, but she was worried that he would end up like his father, dead before his time. His father had been one of her closest friends while he was alive. When his body had been carted back from the mine he'd been exploring, not one person in the entire town had been able to keep themselves from crying.

His father was beloved by everybody. He wasn't exactly famous, but he was as close as they had in Hannessa. He was a radiant explorer and an amazing trainer. The only ones in the entire village who could match his father's fame were the gym leader and the champion. He wasn't even the champion of the same league that his village was a part of though.

Masaomi had big plans starting now. He planned on defeating all five of the league champions. But, considering that he was only _just_ beginning his journey, he had a _long _way to go before he could even begin to challenge them.

"Well, the first step's the biggest right dad?" He asked the old house, turning back to close and lock the door behind him. "Let's go, charmander, chimchar. We have a long way to go, but we'll make it."

* * *

><p><strong>Don't worry everybody, these chapters will be growing longer, these first few were only to introduce the characters, there might be one more character being introduced, but no more than 5.<strong>


	5. Chapter 5

Mikado Ryugamine laughed as he headed back inside after dominating the battle before. "Good job guys." He said to his pokémon, whom he never restricted to staying in their pokéballs. They were free to do as they wished.

Mikado was more than just a champion. He was rather unique among trainers, he was the first of a new breed, the trainers who had soulsync!

In him was the first identified case of it, but soon after more cases were found, none of the same, but some similar. In Mikado's case, he had an invaluable skill to him. All trainers could speak to their pokemon, but only he could understand them.

That was one of the major reason he had been able to come as far as he had. He could listen to them as they told him how the battle was going. He knew exactly how far he could push them without them going too far. he also had the added benefit of having a teammate that desired to win as much as he himself did.

He stepped out into the bright sunshine. As champion, he basically got to do whatever he wanted to. He, and a select group of wise and able leaders, were similar to the monarchy on so long ago, creating and enforcing the laws and standards, and most importantly, protecting everybody. That most key rule, the limitation of the number of pokemon on one's journey was one of the few that transcended location, going from Kanto to Sinnoh, Johto to Unova, even Suanini now. Consistency was one of the first and most important needs of humans. Except for his special league, _every_ battle still only involved a max of six pokémon, as a legal limitation. One could be penalized quite severely if they disobeyed it. Not least of which was a punishment in terms of poké, a hefty fine awaited anybody who disobeyed during a match, especially an official one.

In the sunshine, he began to walk away down to Victory Road. He was still reminiscing about the times when he was trying to come into his own.

With his soulsync, he was able to do a thousand times better than any other trainer of the era. He had been the catalyst to start a new beginning for pokémon everywhere. With the discovery of the new continent Suanini, he had established a new pokémon league, with more gym leaders. He had defeated every gym leader, every member of the Elite Four and assessed them all. He then searched the world for the _absolute _best trainers in the world. Once he found them all, he had begun his own league, more exclusive than any other. _The Master League_.

It had been a simple matter to get all of the other leagues to approve him, but they had done one better. They had elected him as the leader in legal authority. He was, quite simply, the most powerful trainer in the world, and every league recognized him as such.

The real reason they were so willing to accept him as the leader was because he was nice about it. Of anybody in the world, he had reason to gloat about being the best, but he never did. He defeated everybody who challenged him, and even offered advice to help his opponents grow better.

When he was developing the rules for his _Master League_, he wanted the challenge to be the most unique experience of anybody's life.

To begin with: to even be eligible to join his new league challenge, a trainer had to defeat at least three of the other leagues. In addition, they then had to travel around the world and search for the masters. They each received a single clue as to the location. There were no crowds, there wasn't a big televised event for each of these. The 'masters' charaded as simple everyday civilians, a worker in a pokémart, a basic student at a gym, those sorts of things. But these were in fact the most powerful trainers in the world besides himself. His Master League wasn't about seeing whose pokémon was most powerful, it was about the trainer. They had to prove themselves good enough to _find_ the masters, and then good enough trainers to actually defeat them, and then from there to go back to the starting point and doing it all over again.

He didn't make it very far before somebody accosted him. A green haired youth with a sceptile traveling with him.

It wasn't exactly hard to find him to be honest, he wasn't exactly hidden from others. He traveled the countryside with all six of his pokémon traveling along with him. And they weren't exactly easy to hide. Everywhere he went, people saw him and almost always identified him in seconds. Not that that was a problem for him. He loved the spotlight.

"Finally!" The green boy shouted. "I've been looking for you for ages! Grand Master!"

"Bout time somebody made it this far." Mikado chuckled. "So you made your way through the Master League have you?"

"You know it! And now I'm going to beat you too, with my always trusty sceptile by my side!" He clenched his fist and held it out in front of him.

"Watch this." Mikado grinned. He raised his voice a little. "And now it's time for a real challenge!" A few seconds passed where nothing happened, but before the green head could complain impatiently, Mikado added. "Just wait."

And then they came. A dozen reporters from several different news stations from Kanto, Sinnoh, Johto, Unova, Hoenn, and Suanini seemed to swarm up out of the woodwork. They began to ask a thousand questions in only a few seconds. Too much for anybody to be able to answer.

"Are you ready? To be televised around the world?" He asked his challenger. "You'd better, because you're the only one to manage to make it this far as of now. You are the first Master League Grand Challenger!" He said for the audience. "Now the real question. Are you truly ready for the challenge you will be facing? This will be unlike anything you've faced before. In every other league, the challenges grew stronger, but in this case, it's exponential."

The green headed one simply nodded.

_Mew._ Mikado thought the name of one of his oldest allies. Within moments, the little bubbly pokémon teleported in with a large spree of bubbles bursting out in all directions around him. It already read Mikado's mind and sent the message along.

"A mew? I'm supposed to fight a mew?"

"No," Mikado grinned. "Mew is one of my friends, he's gathering my team for the challenge. The challenge is six pokémon against six pokémon, you may use two of your pokémon against any one of mine. You are free to switch out pokémon at any time you choose, mine remain until they are defeated. No items are to be used during the battle."

The first of his pokémon was rushing through the air as they spoke.

"I only have one pokémon to challenge you with. My sceptile has led me through every challenge so far, and I trust him to lead me through this one as well. I am Kitane." He bowed and nodded sceptile forward.

A black shadow blocked the sky and turned the world dark for several seconds.

"Ah, my team is beginning to arrive."

Some of the reporters began to back away, intimidated.

"Time for a real show." Lugia swung in a huge arc and came to land softly down behind him. "Lugia, our challenger." Lugia roared and a hurricane wave blasted out from around the legendary. Sceptile slid backwards from the wind.

"Are you ready?" Mikado taunted as the shadows of the trees stood up and formed into the mighty shape of giratina. Joining it in the same shadow step was darkrai, bringing heatran along with it. A large rift appeared and the paired zekrom and reshiram smashed onto the ground.

"Holy fuc-"

The pokémon roared and Mikado's cloak blasted around him dramatically. One of the reporters was actually lifted up off of the ground.

"They don't like it when you swear." Mikado joked. "Giratina, let's start this off."

"Fine," Came the gruff reply.

"Mew!" The small pink being floated by and blew a bubble at the dragon monster. Giratina wisely chose to ignore the jokester.

"Let's do this, our biggest challenge yet sceptile!" Kitane had a confident grin on his face.

Sceptile made it through one attack of giratina's before being taken out by a second one, with little effort.

"You did better than I expected." Mikado grinned. He walked over and held his hand out. "Nice try, but pass over the keys. You'll have to start over again from the first master."

Kitane deposited the keys into the man's hand without protest. "I'll be back, and I'll beat you the next time!" He declared before turning on his feet and leaving.

Mikado allowed mew to teleport him away. He couldn't deal with the reporters right now.

* * *

><p><strong>Alright so now, just a few more to go through and then this will be caught up. Unfortunately, in many of my stories, I decided that rewriting them would in fact be more beneficial to their popularity.<br>**


	6. Chapter 6

Rayna was even now sitting on the edge of the docks, busily counting all of her new poké. Five hundred per person, and they doubled her rate, quite a hefty sum. She liked counting the money after a job, it made her feel warm and tingly inside. As she counted the money, a small boat paddled by an elderly man pulled into port near her.  
>A young green haired woman rode in the boat with him. She was dressed in loose flowing silks and sandals. That meant wealthy in Rayna's mind.<br>She stood and began to head over to the boat, but she found herself filled with disappointment when she overheard what the man was shouting. "You chartered a boat and didn't bother to bring enough money to cover the tab on it? You stupid girl!"  
>Unfortunately, despite her instinctive greed, Rayna was also unable to watch somebody in trouble. She had been raised by her grandfather, who was as close to a saint as anybody she'd ever seen. He'd instilled the same belief in her, to always try to do good and help others as much as possible. It was times like this when she was really tempted to hate him. But she always found the she was perfectly unable to do that.<br>The girl was now backing as far away from the old man as possible, nervously tapping her fingers against the edge of the boat. He was approaching her with the paddle in hand, his intended method of claiming his price obvious in his eyes.  
>Rayna stood on the docks. "Yo!" She called down to get his attention. "How much she owe you?" There was a sigh lying just below her words tainting the edges of it.<br>"Five thousand poké!" He said aggressively.  
>The sound of those words being spoke to her as an expense hit Rayna hard, right in the pit of her stomach. When it was her price so people needed to spend it to hire her, it sounded amazing, but from the other side, just the sound of it was painful to her ears. She looked sadly down to the wad of poké on her belt before taking it out and throwing it on the floor of his boat. She had been planning to use that money to help fund her journey, but it looked like that wasn't going to be happening anytime soon. She'd need to make even more money to replace that which she'd wasted.<br>She turned and started to walk back to her house, looking sadly down at her feet as she walked. She'd hoped for a really cheap mark who would pay more for a trip and it had ended up costing her more than she'd made on an almost any other job she'd ever taken.  
>The girl scrambled from the boat and raced after her. "Wait!"<br>Rayna turned and continued walking, facing the girl as she started to catch up. "What?"  
>"Th-thank you for that." The girl panted, trying to catch her breath, her bosom flaring below the thin fabric. "I-I'll repay you."<br>"I never said that you had to." Rayna said, turning her back on the prissy girl disdainfully. "You don't owe me anything."  
>"I'm Mitsuru, Mitsuru Honsho." She said, holding her hand out for Rayna to shake.<br>Rayna ignored it. Given the girl's obvious enthusiasm in revealing her name, Rayna assumed that she thought herself somebody of importance. "Never heard of you."  
>"Seriously?" Mitsuru was incredulous about this. "What about my mom, my dad? They're pretty famous. You have to have heard of them before."<br>"Nope, family name's new to me. Never heard of anybody with a name like that. Unless you're trying to tell me that Kitane is your father."  
>"Wait, what?" Mitsuru stopped cold. Kitane...her brother. Her brother knew this random girl? What were the chances of that? "You know my brother?"<br>"He's your brother? Wow, can't believe that. He's never stiffed me for a payment." Rayna laughed.  
>"Do you know where he is?"<br>"I know where he was."  
>"Where?" Mitsuru was thirsting for the information. She needed to know where her brother was. He was the only person whom she'd ever really trusted.<br>"What's in it for me to tell you? I'm already out five thousand because of you." Rayna was nothing if not practical, and selfish.  
>"Please, he's my brother, and I haven't seen him in years. And I promise that I'll pay you back, with interest even!"<br>"Well then. with an offer like that." Rayna had a sadistic grin on her lips, "We'll say you owe me ten thousand and I'll show you where he lived while he was here, and also where he trained."  
>The offer was too good for Mitsuru to pass on. She already owed the girl 5000 poké, and she'd get to find out what her brother had been doing for the past five years in which she'd seen neither hide nor hair of him.<br>Rayna took the girl's proffered hand now, leading her off in the same direction, still headed to her house. Once they arrived, she took a key from a small recess in the back of her belt and inserted it into the keyhole. She led the way inside, flipping a switch to trigger the house lights to come on, before turning and saying, "Welcome to my humble abode, Mitsuru Honsho. Your brother slept in the room in the back, kinda took the entire place over."  
>Mitsuru gaped for a moment. Her brother had been living with this girl! She simply couldn't fathom it. He was always so calm, so serene, nothing ever seemed to bother him, especially attraction to anybody.<br>Here this girl was, trying to say bluntly that she was sharing a house with him. Mitsuru rushed off and tried to affirm to herself whether the girl was telling the truth or not. She headed into the back room, sliding the shoji screen door and walking right through. The back room had definitely been inhabited by a boy. There was absolutely no way that a girl had made this kind of mess.  
>A large mattress lay on the floor, bedding and pillows thrown astray all over the floor around it, clothing strewn almost equally messy. There were even a few plates of food left out on the tables, both human foods high in protein and pokéfood. The food seemed to be in her brother's style, he was all about doing high energy type activities.<br>Rayna dug around in her kitchen, struggling to make her way into the hidden hoard of cash she'd been stockpiling for when she finally left on her journey. Luckily, she'd been doing this for quite some time, so she was well prepared.  
>When she finally was able to worm the money out, she was rather proud of the amount she had been able to retain. All in all, the total amount she'd gotten from almost a hundred trips. She probably could have had more stockpiled, but she still had her own expenses. She counted out the money once real quickly before folding it in half and tucking it away under her belt. She had a few different areas she could carry it, but for now, half tucked away like it was would be good enough.<br>She headed towards the back to check on Mitsuru. "See anything he left that he'll want?" She chuckled. "I just see a dump."  
>"How much was he paying you to stay here?" Mitsuru assumed that the girl was taking money in return for the room, everything else about her seemed to revolve around getting paid.<br>"Enough," The grin on Rayna's face alluded to a non-monetary form of payment.  
>Mitsuru flushed, embarrassed about hearing about her brother in such a way. Her mind flooded with several different thoughts and images, many of which sickened her. Have they had sex? Are they dating? Did he know her before he left? Why wouldn't he tell us? Images of the two, Rayna and her brother, out on dates joined the mingle as well did thoughts of her brother violating the other in a slurry of sweat and lust. All of these and more danced through her head in an instant.<br>Rayna's grin only grew as she saw how embarrassed the other girl was. Yes, she often sacrificed things for the benefits of others, but she was still somewhat sadistic. She was just a mean person, no matter how sweet and innocent she looked.  
>Mitsuru finally managed to control her body, calling the blush back under control.<br>"So, any questions?" Rayna kept her grin strong, laughing silently at the girl, just so the prissy sister could keep some little amount of her self-respect.  
>Mitsuru waited a moment. "How did you two meet?"<br>"My job." Rayna's grin grew again. "One of the best clients I've ever had. He actually doubled my rate, said something about doing such a good job that he felt I deserved it, plus he was better than many of the others I've had to deal with."  
>Mitsuru's mind immediately went to think that Rayna was a woman of the night, a streetwalker, a whore. She certainly seemed to dress like one. Yes, the city lived on the water's edge, but that was no excuse for her traveling around the city dressed like a harlot.<br>With all of the mess in the back room, Mitsuru wasn't quite sure how to handle the thought. Her brother was pretty messy yes, but she couldn't believe that he would be such a slob in somebody else's home. But he was only messy when he was around people he was familiar with, and if he was sleeping with her, he was probably pretty familiar with her.  
>Mitsuru stared at the girl, "And you said you know where he trained?"<br>Rayna nodded, "Sure, follow me." She turned and left the room, sure that Mitsuru would be following immediately after.  
>She was right of course, Mitsuru couldn't stand to not know something so close and tangible about her brother. Rayna thought of numerous ways in which she could use this.<br>Rayna led the way, being perfectly quiet, never saying a word the entire journey. Mitsuru followed, and, after a failed attempt to start up conversation, continued her example of silence.  
>Rayna led her out of the city entirely, out into the grasslands right on the edge of the city's lands. "Right out here," She perched on the side of a large boulder and leaned against a large flowering plant.<br>Mitsuru shivered, but it wasn't from the cold. Despite the night-time air, the meadow was incredibly warm. "So, this is where he practiced?"  
>"Yep."<br>"Against grass types?"  
>"Yep."<br>"Are single word answers all I can hope to get from you?"  
>"Yep."<br>"You're a real bitch, you know that right?"  
>"Yep." Rayna's grin had grown to its widest margin.<br>Mitsuru began to wander around the area when she heard Rayna speak up again. "Welcome back. How did the battle go?"  
>A man spoke up, with a voice that Mitsuru instantly recognized. A voice she'd never forget. "As expected. He managed to defeat me without a problem."<br>"I told you that would happen." Rayna chuckled. "You've got a guest."  
>"Oh?"<br>Mitsuru turned around slowly, filled with hope, but at the same time fearing that it was only an illusion. A cruel prank by the sadistic whore. "Kitane!" When she saw him, she ran to throw her arms around him in a hug.  
>The same green hair, hanging loosely down to just touch upon his shoulders. The same green eyes, hard and crisp with his will. He was now dressed in what appeared to be the tattered remains of some other clothes. It wasn't a look that many would be able to pull off, but somehow he still managed to look good.<br>"I feel that I should be paid extra for actually getting the two of you to meet." Rayna spoke up, interrupting their reunion.  
>"Shut up girl." Kitane's voice broke through the darkness, strong and powerful.<br>"Who's gonna make me?"  
>"My sister might. I doubt you want to face anything of mine."<br>"Wait, what?" Mitsuru didn't want to get swept up in a lover's quarrel.  
>"Shush, grownups are talking now." Rayna said disdainfully.<br>"Hey, wait a mi-"  
>"You can't just talk to her like that. She's older than you!"<br>"What?" The two girls questioned at the same time.  
>"Yeah, Mitsuru's eighteen, Rayna's only 16." Kitane explained.<br>"What?" Their responses were perfectly in sync, as if they had practiced.  
>Rayna fumed a little, she hated people like this girl. Rich without ever having to work a day in their life, and unwilling to share their benefits with others. Kitane had abandoned his family for their same reasons, going out on his own and forcing himself through many unnecessary hardships to improve himself, to be as little as his family as he could. It was clear just from her clothing that she was used to a life of luxury.<br>Mitsuru had an aggressive opinion about Rayna as well, but for far from the same reasons. She didn't like the slut, even if she had dressed in normal clothing. But for right now, she was dressed in a freaking bikini! In public! It was beyond Mitsuru's idea of proper.  
>Kitane disengaged himself from his sister before he walked over to Rayna and placed his hand down on the plant she was leaning against. Rayna leaned up and whispered briefly in his ear, and then he spoke out loud to both of the ladies. "So, how have my two favorite ladies been getting along?" His grin was nearly a match to Rayna's.<br>"Just fine." Mitsuru sighed. "I'm only out ten thousand."  
>"Fifteen. I'm charging you an extra five cause you got to meet him. And I assume you'll both be sleeping in my house tonight." Rayna chuckled.<br>"Not I. Got business calling." Kitane shook his head. "I'm going to need to train a lot more, so it's back around to the gyms." He looked to his sister. "You should feel lucky, my first night with her, she robbed me blind, out almost five times what you are."  
>"Difference is," Rayna explained. "You actually had the money you owed me, when you owed it to me."<br>"Jeez sis, you've been journeying for how long now? You're already that far in debt?"  
>"Apparently, she decided to begin her journey with no money whatsoever."<br>"Really?" He looked incredulously at his sibling.  
>"Sh-shut up! I didn't want to keep relying on mom and dad!" Mitsuru defended herself.<br>"That sounds like you. Doing whatever without thinking ahead, ending up without most of what is actually necessary to your journey." Kitane laughed.  
>"Sh-shut up!" Rayna and Kitane shared their laughter.<p> 


	7. Chapter 7

**Well, I finished this... ReadxReview if you like! Remember, the more reviews I get, the better my self-esteem and the more I'll choose to write!**

* * *

><p>Masaomi had lived in Hannessa his entire life. Well, on the edge of it. As such, he had the same deep tan common to all people who lived in their desert home. Except for his father. Despite for the time that they spent there, his father, the 'adventurer,' spent too long in caves. And inside. He spent too long with his research, and ended up on the wrong side of a cave-in. His father had never been found, which meant that it was still possible that he was alive. The chances of him actually being alive was incredibly slim.<p>

But still Masaomi hoped. There wasn't much else that he could do besides hope. His mother was gone, having died many years prior, wasting away before his eyes. Every time his father came home, Masaomi's parents would always end up fighting, usually over nothing, absolutely nothing! They fought like it was all they could, like it was their jobs.

And then his father would leave again. And his mother would sulk and sink into her emotions, growing angrier and angrier at him, until she calmed. And then all she had was worry for his.

And he would come home, and the cycle would begin again.

Masaomi didn't hope that his father was alive because he had positive feelings for him. But he had no other family, he had to at least know whether the man was alive or not. It was killing him not to know. Especially since his mother had passed thinking that he was on his way home. She didn't know about the cave-in, and he knew that despite all of their fighting, his parents did love each other.

"Charmander, char," Almost seeming to sense his mood, charmander rubbed his head up against Masaomi's shin.

"Hey, buddy. Don't worry, everything's gonna be fine." Masaomi squatted down and rubbed a hand over his pokemon's head.

With the same typical flair he always had, chimchar came out of nowhere doing a stream of incredible acrobatic tricks. The act was silly, Masaomi let out a soft chuckle, unable to keep his foul mood with such hilarity ensuing around him.

"Let's just go guys." He sighed pleasantly. This was certainly going to be an interesting journey.

The sunlight bright with a strong hot desert wind blowing behind him, he walked towards the mountain ridge surrounding the desert of his home. His long black hair danced and tumbled over his eyes, the wind carrying the last trace of the desert to him.

He fell flat on his face, causing chimchar to burst into a loud, obnoxious, chattering laugh. He glared at the simian before looking down to see what he'd tripped on. There was so much stuff just lying around in the sand, it might even be something useful. He brushed aside some of the sand from the round object until it became clear. He leaned in and blew gently, clearing away the sand from the edges.

A red orb that appeared to have a frozen tongue of flame trapped inside greeted him. He reached for it and only barely kept himself from screaming at the searing pain that coursed through his hand. When he looked down at his hand, he found that he had been burned rather severely, even by just the slight contact.

He blew across his hand as he worked to figure out what had happened. Sitting on his heels, he took another look at the item still lying half buried in the sand.

That had been his mistake.

Chimchar saw what he focused on and was immediately interested. Especially when he saw that the item was shiny. He grabbed it up and sighed with contentment upon the feeling.

Masaomi had actually been about to stop the little simian. He felt kind of ridiculous. _Of course, he's a fire-type._

He decided to let chimchar hold onto it for a while, clearly it wasn't very important to whomever had lost it. It made chimchar happy, and calmed him some, which gave the other two some peace. Charmander simply exuded apathy, but still showed some relief that he now a toy to distract himself with. Chimchar could grow incredibly annoying when he was allowed to do as he willed.

Chimchar held the item with all four of his limbs with a grin, rolling through the sand with it happily. His joy was boundless. He was like a little kid. It was adorable.

Masaomi continued on toward the mountains again. It was only a half hour's walk from the village, but the heat and dryness of the desert made the journey seem so much longer. He wasn't even halfway there yet and it seemed like he had already been walking for hours.

It was probably only about ten minutes of walking by the time he actually arrived at his destination. It felt a lot longer, but he'd grown accustomed to the tricks the desert could play on the mind. No matter how long one spent immersed in its grasp, the trick was still dangerous for the unwary. All of the land's tricks still worked when one wasn't fully conscious of what was going on around them. Even to him, and his life was spent dealing with those tricks.

In the sheltering grip of the mountain, he ducked immediately into a puddle of shade from an overhanging ridge of sun-blasted stone. He saw a cave up ahead of him and headed straight for it, wanting to be out of the heat as soon as possible.

In the darkness he wiped the sweat from his brow. "Well, that was fun journey eh?" The village couldn't be more than a ten minute walk away from the mountains, but it was still quite a trek. The raw force of the sun a vastly oppressive heat that seemed to obliterate everything before it. Even his thoughts seemed to be destroyed by the heat. Hell, even charmander seemed lethargic due to the heat.

Although, he was pretty much always lethargic. Even the limitless energy of his chimchar seemed to be waning though. It was a good thing that he ended up walking right to a cave entrance.

He took a break to make sure that he and his pokemon were in top fighting shape. He pulled a bottle of water out and took a drag before he held it down for chimchar. Chimchar sipped little, grimacing at the taste. Masaomi knew that he wouldn't like it, but if he didn't at least offer it then chimchar would be in a foul mood the rest of the day.

Masaomi sat down on a rock to recover a bit from the intense heat. Even chimchar and charmander seemed exhausted from the heat and were only too glad to join him resting. He leaned back and wiped his forehead. He loved the heat of his home, but it was a chore to deal with it for even short periods of time.

He pulled out his pokemon's pokeballs and offered them a place to rest for a time. Within the orbs, they would be protected from the temperature, still oppressive despite the cave.

And of course, neither of them desired to. He knew that they wouldn't, but at the least he could offer. He refused to force them to return into their pokeballs. It was entirely up to them, he would only do it if need be, they wanted to, or they fainted and he needed to bring them to get healed.

He decided it wouldn't do any harm if they all took a brief nap from their excursion. After all, it was a pretty hefty job to trek the desert.

* * *

><p>A long nap saw Masaomi's energy restored. He also found that as he awoke, his charmander was being carried away. It wasn't very quickly, nor was it overly frightening. Charmander had lain on a stone for his own nap. As it turned out, the stone wasn't a stone. Leave it to charmander to find a pokemon to fall asleep on. He walked along next to it as he pulled his pokedex out of his pocket. A quick flip and the program began to search through its database and eventually spat out the answer of "<em>Durant: The Iron Ant Pokemon. <em>Individuals each play different roles in driving Heatmor, their natural predator, away from their colony."

He reached down and grabbed charmander by the scruff of his neck and said softly, "C'mon bud, wakey wakey." Charmander woke up enough to at least catch his feet. Chimchar of course came over to see what was going on.

"Wanna try for a durant buddies?" He smiled and motioned chimchar forward. A durant, no biggie right? After all, it was steel and bug, and both of his were fire. It shouldn't be a problem at all.

"Chimchar! Use ember!" Despite many new trainers, Masaomi had taken the time to learn what his pokemon could do. He had all of their moves memorized and had, hopefully, prepared himself to adapt to anything new they developed. They'd spent long hours training up.

Chimchar blew flames at the steel coated insect.

Durant spun around angrily and glared death at the little simian. Its powerful jaws open and took on the shine of polished metal.

"To the wall bud!" Masaomi commanded as the insect rushed toward the monkey. Chimchar obeyed immediately, trusting his trainer completely. Masaomi waited, seeing the nervous energy in chimchar's gentle quivering. He may trust him, but that didn't mean that he wasn't worried. Masaomi didn't plan on disappointing his trust. When he judged the timing to be right, he snapped, "Now! Up above him for another ember!"

Chimchar was perfect. He leapt straight up and blew another stream of flame across the grey armor. He reacted immediately when Masaomi's next command for him to, "Use flame wheel now!"

Durant's large mandibles drove into the wall, getting him stuck quite completely in the stone. Chimchar was still new to using his flame wheel, so Masaomi was trying to ensure that the chances of him hitting. Three fire attacks, Masaomi wasn't expecting it to last much longer.

Actually, he decided to try to end it now. He pulled a pokeball out of his pack and threw it at the pokemon. Durant went into the orb and rolled about the cave for a few seconds, the ball struggling to contain the angry insect. But in the end, durant was his. Masaomi stooped to pick up his new pokemon with a smile. He immediately opened the pokeball and released it once again.

"There you go buddy." Masaomi smiled. "Don't worry, you're a member of our family now. There's nothing to worry about. You're free to travel under your own power. And if you really choose, you're free to leave. I hope that you'll choose to stay though."

Durant seemed almost to give him a nod, which he took to mean that he agreed to join them. Masaomi pulled his pokedex back out and began to scan through durant's move list, quickly identifying some of his better choices for future reference. He would learn the whole list later. Chimchar was smiling like a king over his small victory.

Durant kicked a stream of sand at the showboating monkey. Chimchar seemed to take offense to that and curled his fists up in front of him in a fighting stance.

The scene was enough to make Masaomi burst into laughter. He leaned down and wrapped them both in a big hug. He was a little surprised to see charmander get up from his nap and open his arms to hug the new recruit. It was so rare to find anything that charmander would actually deem worthy enough to interrupt his laziness.

"Good job there boy." A deep voice call out, echoing through the cave. "Durant's are a lot more useful than most people give them credit for."

Masaomi swung around, looking for the individual who would dare interrupt his time with his pokemon.

"Eh, personally, I always preferred diglet." Another voice cut in.

"Like you can really have any say in which ground types are best." The first one replied.

By now, Masaomi had at least identified a location from which the voices were coming, but still he saw nobody. It wasn't until they actually jumped down that he saw the individuals speaking to him. A tall, black haired man in a pretty heavy fur-lined coat with a large good covering down over his forehead, almost as if he was spiting the temperature. His skin as tanned as most of the Hannessans.

The other voice, the second one, came from a smaller redheaded man. The second was dressed with a yellow cloth robe wrapped around his waist to hang loosely around his legs. Besides that, he wore only a loose green sash from his right shoulder to the opposite hip and a pair of loose brown pants, all made from a very thin material. His shorter hair hung loosely about his ears in a wild mess, kept away from his eyes by a simple bandage. His bare chest tanned and weathered from a life in the desert. A long, smooth scar stretched from his left shoulder, crossing his torso to form an 'X' with the sash. A flower was tattooed in the center of chest, just below his neck.

Nearly everybody in the Suanini region knew this man, he was iconic of the gym leaders. Ryan of the Village of Hannessa's gym. Reputed to be the best, his pokemon were all aligned with the earth and ground that surrounding his home. It had been a long time since his last defeat, another rumor said he had only ever lost to the league champions, and not even all of them. He was good enough to be recognized as a champion in his own right. Just no desire for it.

He slid down from the ledge he was standing on to face off against Masaomi. "So, finally got yourself out on your journey? Good for ya!"

"Ah, a newcomer to the circuit. And just which way do you plan to go? A trainer? A master? A contestant? A champion? A breeder? Where do your desires take you boy?" The man was insistent in his inquiries.

"A master." Masaomi said with a grin.

"Ah, another hopeful challenger for the championship, always welcome. I do love new challengers. Hopefully you'll be up to par." He gave a disdainful grin, as if he doubted Masaomi's chances.

Masaomi had another smile as he recognized the challenge that was issued by the dark-haired man. "Bring out a pokemon, I'll face you down right now. I trust my pokemon completely! We'll kick your ass!" Chimchar jumped up to square off against the challenger while Masaomi issued his own more direct challenge.

"Do you really want to face me boy?"

"Stop calling me that! I have a name! It's Masaomi, and you'd better remember that because I'm about to topple the pedestal you're standing on!"

"Do you really want to face me, Masaomi?" The man allowed.

"Oh hell yes! Let's do this chimchar!"


	8. Chapter 8

Rayna was all for being nice and all, but Mitsuru was starting to piss her off. Her grandfather had never had to deal with a bitch like this. Less than two hours with her and Rayna had wanted to kill her. Now, after several more, she didn't even care which of them was killed. The worst part of it all? Mitsuru wasn't even doing anything!

The girl was fifteen thousand poke in debt, living on the charity of a stranger, with a brother who had just disappeared on her yet again, but somehow, she was just so fricken happy, and without meaning to be, snotty. She never said a word out of place, and she was a model of politeness, and yet everything she did only served to piss Rayna off. It was weird, but whenever Mitsuru did anything, Rayna was filled with aggression at whatever it was she was doing.

Some of her aggression might have been misdirected from Kitane, but she would never admit that to either of them.

She'd missed him. In the short time she'd known him, he'd almost taken the place of her grandfather. Where her grandfather was calm and subdued, Kitane was hard and active. They both taught her the same basic lessons about her morals, and also tried to teach her about beauty. Kitane even urged her to look for the beauty in feebas exactly like her grandfather had before. It was a damn feebas! There was absolutely nothing beautiful about it! Nothing! She had many arguments with both Kitane and her grandfather about that.

Other than that one particular argument they'd had, she loved every interaction with him. So much so, she'd have waived his fee if he wanted to stay the night. Well, maybe.

_Speaking of fees_, She turned toward the back room. She'd given it over at Mitsuru's request, something about wanting to get closer to her brother. The past two hours since had been filled with random cluttering noises, probably her cleaning the bed off so she had somewhere to sleep.

Rayna opened the door and couldn't help but smile.

Mitsuru _had_ been cleaning. It wasn't the bed that she had cleaned though. She was cleaning _everything_ around the room. All of his mess, clothing, garbage, whatever he had laying around. And there was a lot of it laying around. Two hours of obvious effort revealed a five-foot wide hole in the mess. Elsewhere the mess was still just as thick.

But now Mitsuru had fallen asleep on the job, sprawled over the edge of the bed. One of her brother's shirts was clutched tight in her fist. Another lay across her, like a blanket. She was using her pack as a pillow, over all, she looked pretty cute.

Rayna slid the door shut again to give her some privacy. Mitsuru might have a prodigious tendency to annoy the ever-living hell out of her, but right now she just looked adorable.

Then it was back into her living room to train. She picked up her piplup and whistled. Feebas swam around in the small blow-up pool she kept off to the side for the fish's purposes. And her own. She loved the water. Luckily, both her pokemon were water types, so it worked out perfectly. She leaned into the pool, wincing at the sharp bite of the cold water. Piplup slipped through her hands when he felt the frigid liquid wrap around him.

She enjoyed the cold, it excited her. But more than that, it was a way for her to train her limited ability. She didn't have powers like her pokemon, that allowed her to instantly become powerful without the need to train.

She slid under the water and held her breath, training her endurance at holding her breath, and her ability to endure the cold. She only had a few outfits, and all of them were for the warm weather of her home. If she travelled anywhere else in Suanini, she'd freeze in no time. Of course, Mitsuru seemed to be in the same boat, a thin silken shift? Hell, the girl's tits had probably stuck right through, no wonder the boatman was gonna try to rape her.

She kept herself under the water, allowing the chill to burn through her until her lungs screamed desperately for relief. She surfaced with a wild gasp, trying to inhale as much air as possible.

And then she dove again. Only a second to gain as much life sustaining oxygen as possible, and then back. She wanted to push her limits, she wanted to get as close to dying as possible. What was the expression? What doesn't kill me makes me stronger?

She'd been raised on that belief. And the closer it came to killing you, the stronger you became.

Over and over, each time staying under until her lungs cried out for succor. Then a brief surfacing, a second to breath and she dove again. She did this almost two dozen times, until her eyes were streaming tears from the agony in her chest and her throat was raw from her gasping. Her muscles were burning with the intensity of the cold. Every movement she made was pained as she struggled against her cramping muscles.

Piplup had fallen asleep while he was doing his own workout. The little goofball was adorable. Small weights lay to either side of him, where he had fallen asleep, completely exhausted. She dragged herself out of the pool, giving feebas a hard shove when he swam too near to her.

Out of the water, the air only seemed even colder than the water had been. She knew it was just an illusion cast by her weary muscles, but the chill still bit into her.

She inhaled deeply, fortifying herself against it while ingraining the sensations into her body. She wanted to remember the pain of the cold, It would make her stronger right? And it was important to be strong, considering that tomorrow she was definitely going to actually start her journey. Speaking of which, she needed to talk to Mitsuru about that.

She did a final stretch and lay on the couch. She'd been doing the same ritual for the past few weeks to try and train herself up to be ready for her big day. Since she was going to sleep in the wild soon enough, she often fell asleep on the floor, in her pool, on the couch, anywhere but in a bed. Tonight she had originally planned to sleep in the bed in the back room, for some luck rubbing off from Kitane, and as a reward for how hard she'd worked at torturing her poor body.

But then Mitsuru had showed up.

Bet she'd never slept on the ground before. Or a couch. Or in a pool.

Bet she'd never gone hungry through the winter when nobody wanted a tour in the cold water and her family couldn't make any money. Or only had a few different outfits. Hell, Rayna had been wearing only bikinis since she hit puberty, just because they were easier. And cheaper. She even had ones for special occasions, even one for formal occasions.

Mitsuru probably had a closet filled with fine clothes, silks and satin. God, she could probably sell one of her 'prestige' 'designer' items and be set for life. But no, that would be a sacrifice, and why should she have to sacrifice anything?

Rayna stretched herself out a bit, trying to relax her muscles tensed by the cold.

"Stupid bitch!" She muttered under her breath. Mitsuru was really pissing her off for some reason. She sighed. Probably being unfair, but rich people just got on her nerves, all of that money doing nothing while her family could barely survive to the next time they got paid. That was unfair, she was justified in being a bitch toward Mitsuru, right?

She fell asleep next to piplup, laying on the ground.

* * *

><p><strong>Alright everybody, here it is, a pretty short chapter, but it helps to develop the characters some. Whatever, Read and review. <strong>


	9. Chapter 9

**Sorry everybody, but I lost my computer for a couple weeks, then got caught up in Fairy Tail (will be having a story coming out for that one soon enough) and then, well I just suck at being an author I guess... Especially when it comes to time. Read and review as always please, I love it when y'all tell me stuff! **

* * *

><p>"Alright, whenever you're ready boy." The Hannessan challenged. "Try not to disappoint."<p>

Ryan took on the duty of presiding as a judge over the battle. Masaomi knew him, he was a pretty cool guy to hang with. His father had always spoken highly of the gym leader. Anybody who hung out with Ryan was good in Masaomi's book. Ryan was a good judge of character. "Let's do this, chimchar!" He cheered. Chimchar leaped forward to engage whatever the opponent threw out.

"I've very pleased by your willingness." Came the Hannessan's rugged voice. He gestured to the ledge above them where Ryan still stood. A massive shadow leaped down.

With a rugged, grunting voice, it declared. "Magmortar!" Before landing in a cloud of dust.

As excited for the fight as he was. Masaomi certainly hadn't expected to see that as his opponent's first pick. After all, that was a powerful fire-type. And he was only facing off against a little chimchar. The humanoid shape spun to face his opponent, whirling the cloud of dust into nothingness with another cry of, "Magmortar!"

Chimchar took a half step back in fear, but immediately took a full step forward, braving his fears. Masaomi smiled. "So what if he's bigger than us? We'll just have to knock them down a peg or two!"

"Yo, both o'ya ready?" Ryan asked. He was such a professional.

"Ready." Masaomi said, breathing slowly to try and calm his nerves.

"Always."

"Then get'er done!" Ryan laughed. "Chimchar versus magmortar! Round 1 begin!"

"Don't they usually decide how many rounds are in place before starting?" Masaomi questioned. He'd never actually participated in a gym battle, but he'd watched Ryan in a few of them. That announcer always set some regulations in place first. "And other stuff."

"How many pokemon ya got?" Ryan drawled, boredom clearly evident.

"Well," Masaomi turned red. "I've only got three so far."

"How long have you been traveling?"

"Um. I started today?" But he'd fallen asleep. Was it still the same day? "Maybe? It was either today or yesterday."

"It's close to midnight right now." Ryan laughed. "You left today, if you stuck to the plan you talked about when I last saw you."

"And you're ashamed of having three pokemon after only a single day?" The other one said. He laughed. "It took me over a week to catch my second."

"I got to start with two though." When his opponent tipped his head in interest, Masaomi continued. "Chimchar was my first, given to me by the professor. Charmander belonged to my father. He left him home for me to play with while he went doing something around these mountains. Something happened, and the cave he was in collapsed." Masaomi gave a weak smile. "So, I just kinda inherited the lazy bastard."

"Char." Charmander sighed. "Charmander."

"He'll eventually grow into it. Just trust in him and he'll prove himself to you." Came from the hood.

"Um, okay?"

"Not you, charmander." He laughed.

"You're talking to my pokemon?"

"He started the conversation."

Masaomi turned to Ryan. "Should he be getting a handicap or something?"

"Don't worry about that. This'll be a standard three on three match up. Everybody cool with that?" Ryan laughed again. "Now we're regulation. Happy now boy?"

"Don't call me boy."

"Battle!"

"Let's open up with a flame wheel chimchar!" The little simian leaped into a roll, flames sprouting from his body as he accelerated at his opponent. The best way to fight such a large opponent was obviously to outmaneuver them. And while fire on fire wouldn't be the best match up, it should still do some damage.

"Magmortar, hyper beam!"

"Mortar!" Magmortar aimed forward with his cannons and a white light began to charge. The beam blasted out and slammed into the chimchar racing toward him.

Chimchar flew back helplessly, only to slam against the wall of the cave. Large stones burst asunder from the impact, scattering dust into the air. Chimchar crashed to the ground with a pile of loose dirt falling all over him in a smothering wave.

Masaomi immediately ran over to him, digging through the ground to reveal the little simian. When he saw that chimchar was still awake, he was surprised. More, chimchar was now more than just awake and ready for battle. He was mad now. So Masaomi backed up and allowed chimchar to stand up and get ready.

"We're still in this!"

"That's exactly what I wanted to hear!" His opponent grinned. "You got me all fired up now!" He laughed. His laughter was soon joined by Ryan. "Let's get this done hard and fast!"

"Chimchar! Let's avoid getting hit by another one of those!"

"I guess we can give you some practice with that if you like. Magmortar! Hit 'em again with another one!" His eyes were sparkling with how much he was enjoying this.

"Chimchar! Get out of the way!"

Chimchar dove aside and rolled out of the way. The beam smashed into the ground and exploded up in a large shock wave. Enough to actually send chimchar bouncing along for a few skips across the ground. Enough to send Masaomi staggering back into the wall this time. He wasn't all that experienced at this yet, but he knew well enough that hyper beam had one really potent defect. The user had to charge after using it.

"Chimchar! Use flame wheel now while he can't move!" Chimchar leaped into the air and rolled quickly into a ball and began to spin towards the towering humanoid. The ball blazed brightly, but just before impact, magmortar just stepped aside.

Chimchar continued to roll, flying past the other fire type, heading straight toward the Hannessan trainer, who simply turned slightly to allow the little monkey to blow past.

Chimchar slammed into the wall and bounced off, his flames sputtering out once more.

"H-how did you do that!" Masaomi was shocked. No, that wasn't right. After a hyper beam, the pokemon couldn't move until it had time to recharge. That was one of the basic facts about pokemon! Everybody knew that!

"You're in a battle. Question it later." His opponent offered the advice with an avid grin. "It's been a long time since anybody stood past the first blows."

"Right." Masaomi snapped back to the present. Chimchar was okay now. Mostly. He was standing at least. "Use fury swipes!" Against such a large opponent, he would be better off relying on speed and agility. He should have thought of that sooner.

Except, it didn't work.

Magmortar was able to dodge aside and avoid every single swipe, chimchar pawing helplessly at the air.

"Now!"

Magmortar's hand curled up and slammed against chimchar's stomach. "Mag...mortar!" He grunted just before a blaze of flame poured out and sent chimchar flying up into the ceiling of the cave. The poor little guy hit the roof and fell to the ground, completely and utterly exhausted.

"Chimchar is unable to battle. First round goes to Mikado's magmortar!" Ryan called out authoritatively.

"Whoa!" Masaomi's eyes bugged out. "Mikado? Like Mikado the champion?"

"Mikado Ryugamine at your service." Magmortar's trainer ducked into a bow. "A pleasure to make your acquaintance." He chuckled. "How does it feel? You just challenged the premier pokemon master to a battle. Still wanna go?"

"Ah shit." Masaomi groaned. "I can't back down from a battle." He sighed. _The Mikado Ryugamine!_ Go figure that one out. He'd just seen him on TV. World champion. Just imagine if he won. Masaomi smiled. "Alright. Chimchar might be out. But I've still got more to throw at you." He looked down at his newest pokemon with another smile. "Think we can take him durant?"

The steel bug snapped its powerful jaws and glared at his opponent.

"Magmortar, stand down."

"Wait what?" Masaomi complained. "You keep going until I defeat your pokemon!"

"Then I'd never get to use anyone but magmortar." Mikado chuckled. "Plus, my magmortar has a major advantage over your bug. I don't want to end it quite that quickly."

"You're feeling pretty confident aren't you!" Masaomi was getting mad. "Overconfidence will make you scr-" His voice cut off as a beautiful blonde woman stepped out from the shadows behind Mikado. She was a perfect vision of loveliness, complete with a set of gorgeous green eyes. Her svelte body was encased in a clingy, silken blue dress that left just enough of her body showing to be enticing, but not enough that be indecent.

"I will be your next opponent." She said, her voice just as beautiful as the rest of her.

Masaomi couldn't actually form any words. It was like his tongue suddenly became a plank of wood in his mouth. He couldn't even manage to come up with any thoughts other than that she was stunningly beautiful.

"Alright Selena. Let him off easy." Mikado chuckled.

And then the vision of perfection was gone, and in its place stood a purple haired bipedal pokemon. Its face came forward in a fox-like muzzle.

Masaomi immediately questioned, "Whoa, what is that?"

"This would be my zoroark." Mikado's smile could be heard. "She's very very special. Don't you have a pokedex?"

"Um, no." Masaomi chuckled. "No, I was supposed to take my father's when he came back, but uh... Well." He sighed. "My dad never made it back."

"That's unfortunate." Mikado sighed. "Especially considering just how useful they can be. I probably wouldn't have made it even half this far without it." Mikado chuckled. "You know what? Here's an idea!" He walked forward and crossed the battlefield. His hand slipped into his jacket as he approached. "You can take mine." He chuckled at how simple his solution was.

"Um, yours?" Masaomi asked slowly. "Don't you need it?"

"I am the world champion." Mikado chuckled. "I've seen every pokemon there is. If there's something I don't know about them it's because Professor Oak doesn't even know about it. If I had the patience for it, I could probably be a professor myself. But that would mean giving up my authority, and I'll be honest, except for the paparazzi, I love it."

Masaomi chuckled a little, honestly not sure how much he was saying that was a joke, and what wasn't. "Thanks then." He accepted it tentatively.

The device was old, scratched pretty badly and all, but still looked to be in working condition. He quickly flipped it open. "What is this? It doesn't look like the ones we have out here in Suanini."

Mikado laughed. "I'd be surprised if it did. That's the old professor's 'dex/"

"Wait, you mean-"

"Yeah, Professor Oak's. Old friend." Mikado smiled. "We still meet up to discuss some new species and stuff. Usually over tea and coffee. I don't get how he can drink that slop."

"Yo-" Masaomi just stopped. "Right. I get it. You're famous. He's famous. You're in charge of like everything."

"That's not accurate." Mikado correctly. "I am in charge of everything."

Ryan started laughing now. "He's not wrong you know."

"Yeah I know." Masaomi sighed again. He had actually challenged him to a battle? What the hell was wrong in his head? He'd actually thought for a moment that he might manage to win this, what had he been thinking? "Alright. So, it's me against the guy who founded the new championships. Me against the guy who runs everything. Lovely, just freaking wonderful." He sighed.

"Y'see?" Mikado looked to Ryan. "This is why I like being anonymous. Once they find out who I am, they just kinda give up on the match. That's no fun."

"Hey hey hey." Masaomi interrupted before Ryan could respond. "Nobody said that I was giving up. Even if you beat me without any remorse or whatever, I'm not forfeiting. There's always the chance that you'll screw it up and lose!"

"That's a great battle strategy, hoping the opponent, a world renowned pokemon master and champion, will screw up and you can win because of his mistake." Mikado laughed.

"I started my journey today. Er. Maybe it was yesterday actually." Masaomi scratched his head. "I don't really know. I fell asleep a while back and I don't know if I slept through the night or whatever."

Ryan laughed. "Ah, you're just like me and your father when we set out. Course, that was a long time before Mikado became in charge. We probably lost a week or two without even realizing it."

"Really?" Mikado chuckled. "I lost at least a month. Out on my own finally, away from home, school, distractions, I just bunkered down in a cave system near Cinnabar and just trained my days away. Pretty sure I almost killed myself a dozen times during that session. At least after that I remembered to bring food along with me."

Masaomi smiled. "We should probably finish our match shouldn't we?" He flipped open the pokedex and pointed it at the zoroark.

"Bonds between these Pokémon are very strong. It protects the safety of its pack by tricking its opponents." The machine said in response. "Each has the ability to fool a large group of people simultaneously. They protect their lair with illusory scenery."

"Sweet, this thing seems pretty useful." Masaomi chuckled. Right there on the screen was a picture of the poke- "Hey, wait a minute." He turned the device toward Mikado. "The color's off, is this thing broken or something?" The one in the pokedex was red and black, not purple and brown.

"I told you she was special." He chuckled. "She's an incredibly rare specimen of the species."

"Well then." Masaomi sighed. "Let's uh, let's do this durant!"

"I'm sorry." Mikado said as zoroark squatted into a battle position. "Unfortunately, she's my only non-fire type with me right now. Except for gigalith, but that just seemed like a bad match up too."

"Don't be sorry. I accepted your challenge."

"Zoroark, use night daze." The fox pokemon lunged forward with darkness wrapping around its- her- hand.

"Durant! Dodge it!"

The darkness swept right down in the area that durant quickly evacuated. The next moment though, durant went flying backward, landing at Masaomi's feet. Durant didn't move after hitting the ground.

"Durant is unable to battle, zoroark wins the round!"

"Wait a minute! Durant dodged that!" Masaomi protested.

Mikado gave a wicked smile. "I used night daze. You dodged what you thought was the attack. Distraction with one hand, the actual attack with the other."

"Return durant." Durant flashed back to Masaomi's hand in a flash of red light, back to his pokeball. Probably better for him to recover. "Alright charmander. Three on one is nothing, you can take them right?"

"Char." The little lizard growled. Now Masaomi only had to hope that he would listen. Given the prior things that had happened, he couldn't trust that he'd fight and not choose the moment to take a nap. Weren't fire types supposed to be full of energy? So far this one didn't seem to fit the bill. Which was very unfortunate, because Masaomi could use a pumped up pokemon right now. Not that he had a problem with charmander.

Mikado nodded and 'Selena' or the zoroark or whatever it was named flashed back to the beautiful woman again, except this time she was dressed in red.

"Now I'll use gigalith."

"Isn't it supposed to be that leaders and stuff don't change pokemon? Only the challenger may switch pokemon or something?" Masaomi asked Ryan. "So why's he swapping them out so much?"

"Because this isn't an official battle. This is just for fun!" Mikado laughed.

Ryan smiled. "It wasn't established to begin with. So it's not a rule for this battle."

"Ready?" Mikado offered to Masaomi.

"As close as I'll ever be." He looked down at charmander. "You ready?" The lizard nodded sharply once and then glared at the mountain before him. "Then let's do this!"

"Gigalith! Finish this challenger! Use power gem!"

Gigalith's gemstone outcroppings began to glow as energy built up inside of it. Then, with no warning, a powerful blast of energy shot out from the gems, aimed straight at charmander. Charmander tried to dive out of the way, but when the attack hit the ground a large explosion blew charmander right off of the ground and into the wall nearby.

Mikado smiled. "And it looks like that's all she wrote, so sorry, a pleasure to have you, better luck next time, and a spot of tea and what."

Masaomi didn't even know how to react. Not a single one of his pokemon had won. Hell, chimchar was the only one who hadn't been taken out with a single blow. Masaomi fell to his knees, punching his fist into the floor. And he'd thought he'd actually had a chance. As it turned out, he was outmatched so badly he couldn't even process the fight as it went. "This was a terrible idea." He sighed, lifting his fist and slamming it down on the rocky floor again.

"It's never a terrible idea to challenge somebody." Mikado smiled. "And it doesn't matter if you win or lose, so long as you have learned something to help you do better the next time. If you learn something new, then you have had a victory. Those who learn nothing and expect to do better in their next attempt are the ones who have truly lost, and I weep for their poor partners."

Masaomi listened to his words, but Mikado could see that he didn't really hear them. It just went in one ear and out the other. Well, hopefully the kid would come to an epiphany sooner, rather than later. It would be a shame if he became one of _those_ types of trainers.


	10. Chapter 10

**Like I said, got a little slowed up with the new editor and the whole new stories and all. Still, I hope that my going back through and fixing up the chapters is appreciated. Hopefully from here on out, they'll be coming along much better.  
><strong>

* * *

><p>Mitsuru woke up with a shock when her bed jolted under her. Her head whipped around as she struggled through blurry eyes to see what had woken her up. She blinked in shock when she saw the tanned, smooth, feminine thigh right next to her head. Like... <em>right <em>next to her head, right there! A few moments passed in which she just stared, before she slowly traced up the lovely shaped thigh to a very small pair of... panties! Further up, a tight toned stomach and even further up, a small chest covered by a small breast wrap, at that point she realized that the girl next to her wasn't in her underwear, but rather in a bikini.

_Rayna_.

Right, she was sleeping in Rayna's house, not her own bed. The bed her brother had been sleeping in. Well, she was leaning on it, so at least that much.

"Come on sleeping beauty, you gotta get out of my house now." The blue-haired witch said, looking down at Mitsuru. Then she cruelly twisted her hand and bright white light flared to life beside her, forcing Mitsuru to squint to avoid the pain of the light stabbing into her eyes.

"Ugh... what time is it?" Mitsuru complained at her torturous awakening.

The slut held little pity for her poor victim and answered snidely. "It's eight in the morning princess. I let you sleep an extra three hours."

"An extra three hours! The day doesn't begin until ten!" Mitsuru argued.

"Maybe not for you, but my day starts at six o'clock at the latest. Now get your ass up and at'em." Rayna pushed her toe against Mitsuru's shoulder to force her up. "I'm off on my journey today... Gonna blow them all away." She paused for a moment. "But I can't do that while some lazy bones is wasting her own journey by sleeping it away in my room!"

"Your room?" Mitsuru looked around again and then blushed. Her brother had been sleeping in this girl's room? That was indecent! She shook her head to clear it of thoughts like that and looked back up at Rayna. "Wait. You're going on a journey too? We can travel toge-"

"Absolutely not!" Rayna said firmly.

"W-what? Why not?"

"Because you're going to be slowing me down and getting me into even more trouble, I can just see it now." Rayna was frowning down at her. "Besides, shouldn't you be traveling with your own kind?"

_My own kind?_ Mitsuru had no idea what she was saying. "And just what is that supposed to mean?"

"We're too different, get over it." She said heartlessly. "You're rich, I'm poor, you have an hour."

Mitsuru looked up at her in almost shock. She had left her family so that she wouldn't be labeled as a rich airhead, she wanted to make her own name for herself. "Is there anyway I could use your shower before you kick me out?"

Rayna looked at her for a moment before breaking out into laughter.

Mitsuru flushed red and glared at the girl. "And just what's so funny!"

Rayna eventually managed to regain control and stop laughing. She looked down at Mitsuru, her eyes scanning down and over the pretty girl at her feet. "Wow." She mouthed in shock. "You really haven't noticed?" She started laughing again and Mitsuru puffed up angrily. Rayna attempted to stifle her laughing. "Geez, I don't have plumbing in my house you idiot."

"What?"

"Didn't you see? There's exactly two rooms here. My bedroom, and the main room. Why do you think I can afford this place? I told you, I'm not like you. I never got to wake up and take a hot shower in the morning, hell, I have to walk down the street to use a bathroom!"

"But... how do you stay clean?" Mitsuru asked awkwardly.

Rayna glared at her. "You trying to say I'm dirty?" Before Mitsuru could finish stammering out an apology of some kind, Rayna continued. "I clean in the water, y'know the giant puddle outside of my door? That you took a boat you couldn't afford to cross?"

"Yes, yes, yes, I'm aware of what the ocean is. You really bathe in that?"

"Don't have much of a choice do I?"

"I'm sorry."

Rayna looked down at her with disgust before turning away and storming out of the room. "I don't want your pity." She glared at the other girl before reiterating, "One hour, then you're gone." Then she slid the door shut sharply.

Mitsuru blew out a stream of air, blowing straight up from her mouth and sending her green hair flipping about. She pushed herself up and groaned at the stiffness in her body. Bad posture while she was sleeping, but it wasn't like she had planned to fall asleep like that. She had just fallen asleep while she was fixing up the room, picking up her brother's mess.

She looked around the room as she stood up. She hadn't done that good of a job at it though. A drop in a bucket. She giggled at the joke. Rayna would probably have liked that joke. It involved water.

She lazily ran her fingers through her hair, feeling a few knots and tangles. She sighed. A shower really would have been nice, but apparently that was too much of a wish. Hopefully she'd be able to get a meal before getting kicked out. She began working through some stretches to get blood flowing through her stiff achy muscles. It had been a pretty bad place for her to fall asleep, but she had been trying to clean up her family's mess. Her brother's destruction of this girl's room.

And then, at least functional now, she turned to leave the room. She was a little surprised to see Rayna standing in the doorway. And then she blushed thinking about how the bluenette had probably just saw her bending over, stretching her back, stretching her torso with a twist, arcing her back, Rayna had just been watching her? For how long?

"Uh..." Mitsuru couldn't think of anything to say.

"You hungry?"

"Yes?"

Rayna walked away. Mitsuru followed after quickly, scooping up the necklace holding treecko and slipping it over her head, letting it rest between her breasts. Then she was chasing after Rayna, following her out into the main room of the girl's house. She was pretty surprised to find Rayna opening up the wall of her house to access the refrigerator. The food she choose was... unsurprisingly, fish and seaweed.

Mitsuru sighed, judging the frying pan and small fire on one side of the room, she was glad it was at least going to be cooked. She hated undercooked or cold food.

There was a hissing noise that startled Mitsuru, but she realized when she looked over at Rayna that it was only her dropping the food on the skillet. A moment later, her jaw dropped in horror.

Rayna had just reached over into the pool, the pool she used -the pool her feebas was in!- and scooped out a handful of water, pouring it onto the pan for steam.

"W-what are you doing!?" She nearly screamed at the other girl.

Rayna looked over at her in surprise. "What do you mean?"

"T-the water thing!"

"I think steamed fish tastes better than grilled."

"That's not the point!" Mitsuru had to stop herself from gagging on just the thought of eating that. Fish steamed in feebas grease? Ew! That was disgusting! How could somebody possibly think that's a good idea? It was just so... unsanitary to say the least!

Rayna just looked at her with honest and utter confusion. "Then what is the point? Did you want sushi?"

"No!"

"I really don't see what problem you're going on about."

"You're cooking the fish in the water your feebas was swimming around in!"

"And there's a problem with that?"

"Yes! There's a lot of problems with that! It's unsanitary!"

"Unsanitary?"

"Yes! Who knows what kind of diseases you could catch from doing that!" Mitsuru couldn't understand what was wrong with the girl so that she thought it was okay. Seriously? Eating something a _feebas_ was swimming in. The thing looked like it could make you catch half a dozen diseases just by touching the thing.

"Diseases? I've been doing this for all my life and never got sick."

"Th-that's disgusting!" Mitsuru gagged just thinking about it. Maybe Rayna was right, maybe they were too different. It was probably a good thing they wouldn't be traveling together. Still, it would have been nice to have had a friend, even if she was weird. With a sigh, Mitsuru sat down at the table and resigned herself to not eating

She double checked to make sure that she had everything. Not that there was even all that much for her to forget. Her necklace, the loose tunic, a belt, and her little satchel. A few extra pokeballs, just in case she ran into some awesome pokemon to catch, and a couple potions, all set away safely in her satchel. Hopefully she'd have lots of use for one of them, and not so much for the other. After all, she was planning on taking on the league, on taking on the champion! She had a long way to go from where she was now, with just a little treecko and her 'rich' heritage, if you listened to Rayna.

She jumped when Rayna slipped a plate in front of her. "Here you go, a nice batch of oh-so-disgusting fish."

Mitsuru looked down at it with disgust, but while she was looking, her stomach rumbled at her. She groaned, but she was starving. She _needed_ to eat _something!_ And it looked like this was the only thing available. She picked up her fork and swallowed hard before moving it down to cut a piece off. Then she popped it into her mouth and was surprised. She had expected something tasting foul, like what the feebas looked like, but somehow it was filled with vast flavor.

She finished the fish before Rayna had managed to sit down with her own food.

"Are you sure that you don't want to travel with me?" Mitsuru asked again.

Rayna didn't answer, so Mitsuru assumed that she was ignoring her. She grew angry, but it wasn't helpful to grow angry. Why would she have wanted to even travel with a pretentious little bitch like her anyway?

She was wrong though, Rayna wasn't ignoring her, and she quickly made that apparent. "I don't think it's a very good idea." She sighed. "You're from a-whole-nother world than me. You got to shower everyday, you've never gone hungry, you own more than just bathing suits." She shook her head. "I don't even know what that kind of life is like."

"You only own bathing suits?"

Rayna blushed a little and looked away. "They're a lot cheaper here than normal clothes." She shrugged. "And since I spend so much time in the water anyway, it seemed like a waste to spend money on other things."

"You're going to be half naked while you travel across the continent?"

"Don't really have much choice. Besides, I'm going to be taking part in contests anyway, so I won't be staying poor for that long anyway." She grinned. "I plan on winning them all."

"Wouldn't that make you one of the rich ones?" Mitsuru argued.

"I'm not traveling with you!" Rayna snapped, standing up so quickly her chair fell backwards. "Now finish up with whatever and get out!"

Well, whatever she had been expecting, it certainly hadn't been that. Mitsuru was at a loss for what to do. So she just... _went_ with it. It was pretty clear that she wouldn't be able to convince Rayna to reconsider, so, apparently Mitsuru would be traveling on her own. _Great, no really, it was fine. _That's exactly what she had been expecting when she set out. So it wasn't like it was all that surprising. She resigned herself to it. With her meal finished, and all of her stuff packed, she had no more reason to stick around wasting time.

"Fine then." She muttered as she stood up. "You can be by yourself and all moody and melodramatic. But eventually we're going to meet up again. I have to pay up that twenty thousand poké I owe you."

"You only owe me fifteen."

"I'm aware. I'm going to pay you back with interest though." Mitsuru vowed. "So look forward to it, twenty thousand coming at you."

"Tsk, I'll be lucky if I get the money back for the fish you ate." She muttered angrily in response. "And I buy in bulk."

"Fine, don't believe me." Mitsuru's response was just as curt. "That just means that when I succeed in getting you the money, you're gonna have to apologize!"

Rayna laughed, she actually laughed at her! Mitsuru flushed with a mix of anger and embarrassment. "Tell you what. You actually manage to pay all of that, I'll personally take you out on a date, and then make a public apology in the middle of the restaurant."

"A d-date!" Mitsuru certainly haven't been expecting _that_. "But w-what about you and my brother?" She blurted out without thought.

"Your brother?" Rayna looked honestly confused, Mitsuru unfortunately had to admit that it looked really cute on her. "What about your brother? Wait! You actually thought that me and him had a thing?" She burst out laughing again. "In case you forgot, I'm two years younger than even you are. Your brother is even older than you are. That would make a him a really really bad person if he even hugged me for too long. Besides, he's just a customer." She shrugged. "He's not even my type."

Mitsuru just stared for a moment, embarrassed even further now. "W-well... good! You're not his type either!" She immediately regretted saying that. She knew that Rayna wouldn't leave that comment alone.

She was right. "I should hope not, unless he's really into people five years younger than him." A brief chuckle. "And how confident are you in that claim anyway? Considering... wait, _how_ long has it been since you last saw him?"

Mitsuru grabbed her bag and swung it up onto her shoulder. "I'm just going to leave now before I humiliate myself even further."

"Aw," Rayna teased. "Just as I was getting to like you."

Mitsuru took that as her cue to leave and walked to the door, slamming it closed behind her with all of her strength. She had been hoping that the shoji screen would break behind her, but unfortunately, that was not to be. Oh well, she'd settle for an angry storm out, better than nothing.

Now she had to decide where she was going to go from here. She really only had two options available to her now, land or sea. She was in Sunset Cove after all. Either she could hop onto another ship and go home to Watakashi, or Tyrannoh City. But she wanted to take on gyms, so going home would serve no purpose. And all throughout her childhood, she'd heard horror stories about Tyrannoh, and the entire island it was on. So it looked like she'd be hea-

_Oh wait._ She had a spark of intuition, memory to be precise. How could she have possibly forgotten that Sunset Cove had a gym of its own? Uh, smack in the middle of 'the Cove.' Looked like she would get an opportunity to check out the amusement park after all.

But she had to turn around, which she tried to do while being discreet, but of course there was no real good way to turn around in the middle of the street and head back the opposite direction. She did so anyway, choosing embarrassment over walking away from her destination. Well, further away from it anyway. She had to work hard to keep her face from turning red when she was forced to walk back past Rayna's, especially since Rayna was actually out in front of her home, turning the sign from open to closed.

The girl had added onto her wardrobe, now wearing- surprise, surprise- a black bikini that- in Mitsuru's opinion- left far too little to the imagination. Just a few inches above that she wore that same thick metal belt that looked familiar to Mitsuru, now that she was looking at it in the light. A similar band of metal was attached to each of her wrists and ankles. Above that first belt, she wore a second belt, and on this belt was where she had a full set of pokéballs attached. The rest of her body was bare, even her feet. Mitsuru noted happily that the girl wore her hair in a ponytail, one of Mitsuru's favorite styles, although she didn't like to keep her own like that.

Rayna really was pretty cute. For somebody that mean and selfish of course. It wasn't like she was forgiving her the attitude she'd been having the whole time.

The Cove, amusement park extravaganza. But before she could enjoy herself playing there, she wanted to take a chance on the gym. When she arrived at the Cove though, she was almost immediately distracted. Rides, games, contests, everything one could imagine. Over there, a bunch of mareep were milling around a pair of flaaffy and a single ampharos. Surrounding the woolly quadrupeds was a horde of children, laughing as they ran amok, chasing the pokémon and each other. Every so often, one of them would jump, shocked by the built up static, but after the initial surprise, the kids would always return laughing.

She was sorely tempted to rush right over and begin playing around, but two things stopped her. First off, she desperately wanted to face off against a gym immediately to get some experience and learning from the act. Secondly, she had absolutely no money...

So she had to do some winning to earn herself some cash!

She turned away from the exciting games and rides and headed for the 'Cove's' gym. As soon as she saw the gym, her lips spread in a smile. Looks like she was going to get a chance to ride before facing the gym leader.


End file.
